Onyx Beacon provides integrated solutions of micro-location and contextual communication for multiple sectors and use cases, based on Bluetooth Beacon technology, working both with iBeacon and Eddystone protocols. Our solutions are ready to use or can be easily customized, according to your needs.

FAQs

Content Management System (CMS) (19)

Beacon system tab is updated upon beacon synchronization. For that you should use the iOS beacon management app and synchronize as described in Beacon Management App section. Or you can wait until a campaign content is served through our SDK and the system info is updated.

The sync process is done once a week automatically using the app that implements our SDK, or whenever you want using the management app. You can also request system updates using the checkbox under the column System Data Update Required in your beacon list. Check it if you want updated system info data upon first beacon content delivery.

The analytics get updated once the visit has ended. This means you have to get out of the range of the beacons. If you are in the far region of the beacon, the visit is still not considered to have ended, so you should completely get out of its range. Only after this, will the CMS analytics dashboard get updated.

Yes, it works with beacons from any other vendor. Content can be delivered without any problems. However, you will not be able to change the beacon’s configuration (frequency, power, etc.) or monitor the battery level.

Users created from your account will always be sub-users of your account and can see everything in your account. In order to create a regular user, the client needs to register from your whitelabel page.

Yes, you can. This is how: Sub-user accounts don’t have access by default to the management app login. For sub-users, you need to specifically enable it from the user Edit page / Management tab / Enable Management App Access checkbox. Normal users created from the register page will have that checkbox enabled by default.

Using this option, you can send coupon messages based on geofence breach. For now, the geofences are considered your defined locations with a radius of 500 meters.
The push message will be sent only when the application users enter the location region and only on a specific device status information. For now, the device status that will trigger the notification will be having bluetooth OFF. We created this type of notification especially for this use case, allowing you to notify and invite the users to turn ON their Bluetooth or to directly deliver commercial messages to them, even when they have the Bluetooth OFF.

The stream works for beacons assigned to a location. I just noticed that you don’t have any locations and no beacons are assigned to a location.
The exception you received should have stated that you don’t have any locations, but I don’t know why the text message is not there.

In order for the stream to work you should create a location and assign the beacons to it.
The stream will contain data from beacons at your locations tagged with the “realtime” tag. Unassigned beacons won’t show up in the stream.

Yes, it is possible. A sub-user will have to be created, and all the limitations will have to be selected. By selecting the limitations, the super-user will allow the sub-user fewer, wanted features to be seen and used. For example, you can create a sub-user having access only to a certain location, called location admin sub-user.

For the dwell time content, we have some limits from the iOS, that closes the app when in background and only an event like enter beacon region, wakes up the app to receive notifications on trigger dwell time.

For Android, the dwell time content is registered even though the app isn’t in foreground.

Please check if you have the content already received before sending the app in background. If you have the content, swipe to left on the cell to delete it. If the content is delivered, then you’ll not receive any notifications.
If none of this helps, please send the logs from the Xcode console for the sample app and/or try to reproduce this behaviour using OnyxBeacon management app ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onyxbeacon/id866036902?mt=8 ). In the OnyxBeacon app you have to login so the app can load your account info. You have an option to send logs directly from the app.

In the current version, the API for enabling buzz on the beacon is not exposed yet. We’ll integrate this feature in one of the next releases of the SDK.

It is possible to enable buzz on the beacon by connecting to it through CoreBluetooth:

1. Scan for peripheral devices and read the scan response. Please take a look at the structure of the scan response (advertisementData paramter from centralManager:didDiscoverPeripheral:advertisementData:RSSI: delegate method). You can identify your beacon by using the major and minor values. The UUID field contains the first 4 bytes of the proximity UUID due to scan response size limitations.

2. After you have identified the peripheral you’re interested in, issue a connect and then scan for services. You should identify a service that has the UUID 2aaceb00-c5a5-44fd-2000-3fd42d703a4f.

3. After retrieving characteristics for that service, identify the characteristics that have the following UUIDs:

3.1 Buzz characteristic accepts one byte data with value 0x01. This will enable a buzz that will have 4 beeps at equal intervals of time during 4 seconds.
3.2 Extended buzz accepts 2 byte data, a bit field where each bit represents the state of buzz, total of 16 bits. There will be a short buzz, a preamble, after which the buzz pattern will be issued. The total length of preamble + 16 flag bits has 4s.

The beacon functionality works independently of the coupons. About the implementation, the action filter is right.
Check to have mManager.setAPIContentEnabled(true); in the code that initializes the sdk.

iOS SDK has the support for unattended beacon configuration. The SDK that is integrated in the app that is running on client phone can detect if the beacons that are around need new configuration and will connect and attempt to send the configuration packet.

Depending on the location, the range of our beacons can be up to 70 m. The closeness to the beacon needed also depends on the triggers used when creating your campaigns, based on the three “zones” from the area around the beacon:

An app that supports beacons is required to be installed on the device, but the app doesn’t need to run in the foreground in order to receive the signals from the beacon. When the beacon sends a signal, the app can be in the background.

The beacon communicates with the server via the SDK in the smartphone of the user. The way it works is that the beacon broadcasts its ID, the mobile app through the SDK receives this information and asks the server which action (deliver content, retrieve analytics) should be taken for that specific beacon.

Yes, it is possible, but not as much as to 1 or 2 m. If you need the interaction to happen in that area of the beacon, you can control it through triggers. If you choose the immediate “zone” (0 – 1 m) as a trigger then the content will only be delivered when the customer is in that area of the beacon.

Yes, our beacons come with heavy duty 3M® VHB® tape which sticks to almost any indoor and outdoor surface. Enterprise Beacons also come with the possibility to screw it with one of the four screw cavities.

All Bluetooth 4.0 devices should pick up the signals from the Onyx Beacons. The most popular ones are: iPhone 4S, 5, 5C, iPhone 5S, Samsung Galaxy 3, HTC One, Blackberry Z10. You can see a list of devices supported as well as more info on the Bluetooth low energy standard on the Wikipedia page.

Our core business does not include developing apps as well. We only provide demo apps, which will help you in showcasing the functionality of the solution or to get to know the technology better. For specific use-cases, you will need to create your own app and integrate the SDK we provide, available both for iOS and Android.

That depends on the way you advertise the fact that you offer your visitors the possibility of receiving relevant content now, more and more people find out about the iBeacon technology.

Soon, people around the world will be aware of the fact that there is relevant information that can be received by only turning their Bluetooth:
1. The Bluetooth low energy (BLE) does not affect the batterylife of the smartphone.
2. Once the Bluetooth was already turned on and interacted with the beacon, the advertiser will be able to send push notifications to remind the visitor to turn the Bluetooth on.

Firmware (2)

Our Beacons have a high level of security due to a mix of encryption, randomness and simplicity. The encryption is based on a combination of AES-128 and MAC (Message Authentication Code), relying on a dedicated hardware coprocessor embedded in our beacons. The configuration process is greatly simplified by moving away from the mobile client and assigning this responsibility to the server side Beacon Management Software. This provides a secure way to configure and manage large-scale deployments, avoiding beacon loss to UUID hijacking.

The configuration packet is encrypted using AES-128 CBC. The packet also contains a MAC for packet validation.
The private key is stored on the beacon and on CMS. A new configuration can be created on phone or on CMS. If it is created on phone, it is sent to CMS for encryption. After the configuration is ready, it is encrypted with the private key and sent to the phone and then transferred to the beacon. If the packet is valid, it is decrypted and new values are applied. If not, the packet is discarded. You need to have a connection between phone and CMS in order to obtain the encrypted version of the config.